


Songbird

by FairlyLorely



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Dysfunctional Family, Feelings, Gen, Hope, M/M, Pre-Slash, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairlyLorely/pseuds/FairlyLorely
Summary: An exploration of what might have gone through Billy's head when Max swung that nail-studded bat at the family jewels.





	Songbird

**Author's Note:**

> I strongly relate to Billy's character. Having experienced abuse, I know how it can twist your understanding of healthy relationships, and how deeply it affects your psyche, your ability to have healthy relationships. Writing this is part of an exercise where I journal my life with a filter of fiction.

Nothing does a better job of making a monster out of you than your family treating you as less than human. Because see, we trust our family. Even when we don’t listen to them, subconsciously, we’re following their lead. Our approach the world, the way we tackle our problems, the creation of our self-identity. Family is key.

So, it happened; a slap here, a cursing out there, and one day, I found myself spitting the same spittle that had disgusted me for years. I was beginning to resemble my monster, my mother’s monster. If only she could see me now.

I saw myself.

I preened before the mirror, admiring the wet glisten of my lips, the indecent expanse of my bared, hard chest, the playful dangle of my single earring, I saw what others saw. Danger and draw. I took a pull from my cigarette, the momentary breathlessness a welcome relief. The smoke swirled around my curls, obscured my reflection. That’s all it was. Smoke and mirrors. I saw myself.

I told myself I would be better when times were better. I’d apologize to Max on a phone call made from a city miles away from Hawkins or California. She really was the only one I owed an apology to, and I’d deliver one day when I’d had my own deliverance.

I remembered every night that half-remembered night, and every night, I lost track of actuality and augmentation. Only the bare bones of it remained fresh and unchanging. My mom tucking me in, kissing me goodbye instead of goodnight, and then simply ceasing to exist in my life. Just as my memory of that last kiss, real but warring with my understanding of reality, I constantly questioned my life’s verity. Nothing seemed real, so what did it matter if I broke some mirrors in a dreamscape. The cuts from the shards would heal when the alarm clock blared.

I drowned out the questions with music so loud I could feel the drums beat in my skull and the base zing in my blood. The ruckus made everything quiet, but then Max would ask a question.

Sometimes in words, sometimes with a look. Sometimes simply by choosing to live like she was any other little girl, not a songbird incarcerated in a monster’s rusty cage courtesy of her mother’s resolute blindness. I looked at her, fluffing up her feathers, ready to take flight, and I wanted to scare her into a few more hours of rest, just a little while longer before she realized there was no open sky to fly to. Just the dull white ceiling of our modest three-bedroom, American cookie-cutter existence.

Shitbird, I sometimes called her, because she really did shit all over my life with her precocity and relentlessness, clucking and clawing, waiting for winter’s end to take off on her first migratory flight. But there wasn’t a home to return to. Only a cage. Songbird was what I meant.

I thought I could keep her inside her cage long enough for me to break out of my own cage. She was my responsibility. Of all the things Neil had said, this was the only truth.

Now, she stands looking down at me, in a house seemingly on the brink of ruination. It carries a tinge of tragedy, a drawl of desperation. The smell of fear is putrid in the air, permeating into the creaking floorboards and madness is scribbled onto the walls.

I finally see.

She’s been biting away at that cage until her beak bled, and this time, as I tried to push her back in, she pecked at my fidgety fingers and drew blood. Whatever poison she’d stabbed into my neck lulled me into sleep. The nail-studded bat barely missed me, or maybe it did find its mark. I couldn’t be sure.

My body was going numb, but my mind could not have been clearer. Max was willing to beat down her monster to protect her friends. I, on the other hand, had chosen to become a monster to play at protecting my sister. She took every bit of terror I threw her way, and she turned it nobody else’s way. She kept it close to her chest, an armor. The questing knight in the songbird’s heart came out mace swinging. Max had done well for herself.

Pretty boy did pretty well for himself as well. Figures that the longest he paid attention to me was when he was socking me in the jaw, repeatedly. Sure, I’d been asking for it. My father’s smacks and slams had never smarted as much. His lessons had never hit the mark quite like this. What right did I have to hope Steve would look at me and see Max’s brother? What right did I have to hope he wouldn’t lie to my face? That he would try to reason with me. To him, I was beyond reason, beyond hope. I closed my eyes to the lullaby of a chirping tune I hadn’t heard in ears. The cage was rattling.


End file.
